San Rafael’s Dominican University under federal bias probe

Allison Bordessa, a former graduate student at Dominican University of California in San Rafael, says she was illegally dismissed from her occupational therapy program. (James Cacciatore/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

Dominican University alleges that Bordessa had a pattern of substandard performance. (James Cacciatore/Special to the Marin Independent Journal)

A federal civil rights office has launched an investigation into Dominican University of California in San Rafael on allegations of age and disability discrimination, the agency said.

The Office of Civil Rights, part of the federal Department of Education, opened an investigation Aug. 18 into a claim brought by Allison Bordessa of Novato, a spokesman based in the agency’s Washington, D.C. office confirmed. He declined further comment because, he said, it was still an open case.

Bordessa, 53, who has an autoimmune rheumatoid condition causing bone and joint aches, brain fog and dry mouth, was ousted from the school’s occupational therapy master’s degree program in December 2016 after allegedly getting a low score on one subjectively graded test question representing the equivalent of 0.78 percent of a point, she said.

The scoring, which occurred, Bordessa said, as part of a pattern of bias against her, caused her to fail the course and so be eliminated from the school roster.

She said she was otherwise posting a 3.3 grade point average in the competitive program she had attended since fall 2014.

“Students with lower grades than my 3.3 grade point average are passing their state board examinations and getting job offers paying a starting wage of $45 to $52 per hour,” Bordessa said.

After months of unsuccessful appeals to the university from December 2016 to May of last year, Bordessa filed a civil rights discrimination claim with Jessica Plitt, in the federal agency’s San Francisco branch.

Sarah Gardner, a Dominican University spokeswoman, said the school had not received a copy of the discrimination claim from the federal Office for Civil Rights.

“Due to the student’s privacy interests, Dominican will not provide information contained in Ms. Bordessa’s student records,” Gardner said in an email. “Nonetheless, Dominican has acted appropriately and fairly toward Ms. Bordessa at all times and looks forward to working with the Office for Civil Rights to address her concerns.”

According to an email from Plitt, the university, via its attorneys and the human resources department, declined to agree to mediation or any negotiations on the claim. The rejection of mediation automatically sends the case into investigation mode, Bordessa said.

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“The narrow window of time for me to work in my chosen field diminishes with each passing week (as) the statute of limitations to rectify Dominican University’s unlawful actions draws to a close,” Bordessa said in an email.

Traffic tie-up

On Oct. 18, 2016, the morning of her “C-minus” score on the second midterm exam (a “C” score is required for passing), Bordessa, coming south to San Rafael on Highway 101 from Novato, was caught in gridlock from two simultaneous traffic accidents — one at Ignacio when a motorcycle hit a deer and another at Larkspur, she said. She arrived late and stressed to the 8:15 a.m. exam.

The traffic was so bad, Bordessa said, that the test proctor herself was also caught in traffic and was unable to administer the exam — having to hand over those duties to the course instructor.

“I arrived at (Dominican) harried and extra nervous from the commute to find (the instructor) waiting at the classroom, refusing to allow my full testing time, or to reschedule my exam to another time or day,” Bordessa said in an email.

When Bordessa asked if she could reschedule the test, the instructor allegedly “refused to even listen to my predicament and said ‘the more you argue with me, the less time you have to take this test,’” Bordessa said.

“In my upset, nervous state I sat down and took the exam,” she said. “The following day, I found out that (the instructor) had scheduled two other students to take the exam later in that week — one student for personal reasons and the other student was out of town with the volleyball team.”

According to Bordessa, she should have been accorded some accommodation.

“Due to my rheumatic condition, I qualify as a disabled student and have testing accommodations of additional time and testing in a quiet environment,” Bordessa said. “By not providing me with the pre-approved amount of test time, section 504 (of the federal Rehabilitation Act of 1973) was violated.”

Competitive program

School officials, however, attest that the exam conflict was one of a series of instances where Bordessa failed to live up to program standards. Dominican’s occupational therapy program only allows students to receive less than a C grade in one core course and one field work class during the length of the coursework.

Because Bordessa had previously failed a core course under similar stressful conditions in spring 2015, the second occurrence in October 2016 was grounds for dismissal from the program, said Ruth Ramsey, the former occupational therapy department director and now dean of the university’s Health and Natural Sciences division, in a Jan. 4, 2017, letter to Bordessa.

“OT faculty and clinical instructors have also repeatedly commented on several areas of poor professional behavior on your part,” Ramsey wrote in the letter. “(Those were) time management, as indicated by arriving late to classes, fieldwork and tests, tardiness meeting medical records requirements deadlines, general distractibility and problems focusing in class and clinical settings and difficulty attending and responding to social cues.”

Bordessa, however, alleges in a Jan. 11, 2017, letter to Ching-Hua Wang, former dean of Health and Natural Sciences who has since left Dominican, that the instructor for the fall 2016 course violated several basic guidelines in the student handbook that would have allowed her to get extra help.

“(She) failed to treat me with fairness, respect and courtesy at all times,” as the handbook requires, Bordessa said.

The instructor could not be reached for comment; however, both the dean and the department chair supported the instructor’s actions.

“Since you do not meet the conditions for being a graduate student in the program and do not have (Dr. Ramsey’s) approval for reinstatement, I regret to inform you that the dismissal decision stands,” Ching-Hua Wang wrote in a Jan. 11 letter to Bordessa.

Bordessa said she disputed the assessment of her performance in a series of letters she sent to school officials.

$85K in loans

Occupational therapists work with children and adults who suffer various health challenges to help them design ways they can stay active, take care of daily functions and lead fuller and more productive lives. Bordessa, a former health care management and public relations associate forced to seek other work due to her disability, said she was hoping her new career path would allow her to earn a living by helping people overcome physical or other health challenges as she has had to do.

She said she chose Dominican’s program because it was the closest to her aging parents in Forestville in Sonoma County. She said she realized she was “30 years older” than all her other classmates, but was doing her best to keep up. In the last three years of attending the program, Bordessa said she has amassed $85,000 in school loan debt that she has no way to repay since she cannot be hired as an occupational therapist without obtaining her degree and passing the state board exams. She had two courses and an internship left to complete, she said.

She said she did not have the financial means to hire an attorney.

“If this (dismissal and appeal) process had been objective and fair, I would just shut up and eat it,” Bordessa said. “But it’s not fair; they’re not following due process.”

She said she would have welcomed mediation and a chance to work out a plan with school officials so she could prove herself — instead of going public about the federal civil rights investigation.

“Clearly, since they won’t sit down and mediate,” Bordess said, “I had no other choice.”